Saturday, March 13, 2004

Barron's Online - IBM Software Unit Has Case of Big Blues

Barron's Online - IBM Software Unit Has Case of Big Blues: "There could be trouble brewing inside Big Blue's $14.3 billion software business, which is critical to the company's soup-to-nuts total solution strategy. Last year, for the first time in more than 20 years, IBM's software sales force didn't receive bonuses specifically tied to its performance.
Why? Because the software unit failed to rack up significant growth in 2003 -- not including revenues attributed to a newly acquired company, says a former IBM executive.
On top of that, the vice president of finance for the software group, 22-year IBM veteran George Harrington, resigned last week to become chief financial officer of BMC Software in Houston. Of course, Harrington's departure could be unrelated to the problems at Big Blue, but the timing of his career move has raised eyebrows among IBM-watchers."